Mexican mummies stiff-arm Cicero

Guanajuato backs off plan to display prized specimens in suburb

GUANAJUATO, Mexico — The best-known ambassadors for this central Mexican city are frayed, grotesque figures that have been dead for decades.

Still, municipal officials hope their internationally renowned collection of mummies will breathe life into the city's civic image when the mummies go on display in the U.S. for the first time.

The suburb of Cicero had the same PR ambitions. By agreeing several months ago to play host to the mummies this summer in its new community center, Cicero hoped to overcome its image as Chicago's less-refined neighbor.

The plan hit a hitch, however, when Guanajuato officials learned that the mummies weren't going to a downtown museum in Chicago, as they had assumed, but to a gymnasium in a working-class suburb of primarily Mexican immigrants. Officials decided last week to reconsider the Cicero plan, appointing a commission to look for a higher-profile venue instead.

Guanajuato leaders worry that the exhibit could bomb if crowds stay away from a town known in Mexico as the home of Al Capone. They also fear that if the mummies make their U.S. debut in a gym, they might come off as a "freak show."

"Is Cicero really the best place? We have our doubts," said Eduardo Romero Hicks, mayor of Guanajuato. "I think a display of this type deserves a special venue."

For Cicero, what began as a feel-good story has become a horror show. Guanajuato says it still would consider Cicero as a last resort, but that doesn't ease the sting of what feels like yet another slight.

Cicero officials say that if they get a chance, they will do right by the mummies.

"They should educate themselves about the town and its resources and the kind of run the exhibit could enjoy here," said Cicero spokesman Dan Proft. "I think their wrongly held preconceived notions will be dispelled. But I can't force people to think a certain way."

The mummies are well-known within Mexico, the destination for many a family road trip and the co-stars of a 1970 film in which the masked wrestling hero El Santo does battle in Guanajuato with mummies-come-to-life.

Unlike their Egyptian counterparts, these mummies are not lying in golden cases fit for royalty. They are naturally mummified, and the collection was born with residents originally interred during a cholera outbreak. Many mummies were later removed from crypts because relatives could not pay the upkeep.

Since the first mummy was discovered in 1865, the collection grew by adding everyday Guanajuato citizens. For decades the museum didn't even keep the mummies behind glass even as they drew crowds to this former silver-mining city.

Cook County connection

That one-time casual approach to the mummies was akin to how Guanajuato and Cicero were paired up last year. The Mexican town was looking informally for a U.S. host, and Cook County Commissioner Joseph Mario Moreno had a mutual friend with the Mexican consultant hunting for venues.

Although no contracts were ever signed, Cicero began talking up the mummy exhibit. A Mexican official in Chicago initially trumpeted the milestone: The high-profile event was going to Cicero, not Michigan Avenue.

In the past few months, however, the mummy museum has gained a new management team that has started to explore more professional and lucrative opportunities for their prized tenants.

Although small contingents of the museum's 111 mummies have toured Mexico since 2005, the new team began exploring other avenues for bigger profit. City officials are even looking into placing the mummies on Mexico's stock exchange so investors can buy shares in their financial future.

Because of all that, the stakes are now higher for the U.S. debut of the mummies, the opening salvo in a civic campaign to promote Guanajuato as an international tourism destination.

"It's like a bad movie -- when the word of mouth starts, you cannot change that," Romero Hicks said.

The bilingual mayor with relatives in Wisconsin knows all about Chicago's prized museums. He turned to English to emphasize his point: "You never get a second chance to make a first impression."

Luis Eligio Rubalcava, Guanajuato's director of museums, said constituents will be following the fate of the mummies closely because they hold such sentimental value.

"They are our postmortem ambassadors," he said. "They aren't kings. They aren't mummies from distant places. They are our neighbors, and we have to treat them with dignity."

In fact, some in Guanajuato do not always treat the mummies with such reverence. The gift shop sells T-shirts of the mummies, including one reading: "This is what my girlfriend looks like when she is angry."

Cristina Saldana, chief of staff for Moreno, who has been Cicero's liaison with tour organizers, said the bigger problem is not the mummies' dignity but that Guanajuato is "just interested in making money."